Did you miss the latest events on the war in Ukraine? 20 Minutes takes stock for you every evening. Between the strong declarations, the progress on the front and the results of the fighting, here is the main news from this Sunday, January 5, 2025, the 1,047th day of the conflict.
News of the day
Moscow said on Sunday it was repelling a new Ukrainian offensive in the Russian border region of Kursk, where kyiv’s forces already control several hundred square kilometers since an assault in August 2024, a surprise operation two weeks before Donald Trump’s return home. White.
“Around 9 a.m., the enemy launched a counterattack in order to stop the advance of Russian troops in the Kursk area,” the Russian army said in a statement on Sunday. According to her, “the assault group of the Ukrainian army was defeated by artillery and aviation” and “the operation to destroy units of the Ukrainian forces continues.” The Ukrainian army remains silent for the moment about this new operation.
The number of the day
32. More than 30 cetaceans were found dead at sea after the sinking of two oil tankers in the Black Sea in mid-December, a specialized NGO based in Sochi, in southwest Russia, announced on Sunday. “We recorded 61 dead cetaceans, including 32 individuals who died after December 15, whose death is most likely linked to the oil spill,” lamented the Russian NGO Delpha on Telegram, referring to “a high” and “atypical” figure. .
On December 15, two Russian tankers, the Volgoneft-212 and the Volgoneft-239, ran aground during a storm in the Kerch Strait between Russia and the Ukrainian Crimea peninsula, annexed by Moscow in 2014. These ships were carrying 9,200 tonnes of fuel oil, around 40% of which could have spilled into the sea.
Today’s trend
Russia claimed on Sunday to have shot down dozens of Ukrainian drones overnight, without reporting any casualties. “Last night, 61 Ukrainian drones were destroyed by our defenses,” the Russian Defense Ministry said, adding that most of them were destroyed near the border with Ukraine. Four airports had to briefly interrupt air traffic early Sunday morning, “for security reasons,” forcing at least eight planes to divert, said a spokesperson for Rosaviatsia, the Russian civil aviation authority.
Our file on the war in Ukraine
A Russian journalist was also killed by a Ukrainian “suicide bomber” drone while traveling on a road in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine, the Russian newspaper reported on Saturday. Izvestia. Alexander Martemianov, an independent journalist who worked for the newspaper, was returning from Gorlivka, a town in the Russian-held Donetsk region bombed by the Ukrainian army, with colleagues when their car was hit, the news agency said. Russian state press RIA. An RIA journalist and four other media employees were injured in the attack, the agency added.
